Add Maple
← All help articles

Time Charts

Time charts help you visualize how data changes over time. AddMaple provides flexible time visualizations that let you explore temporal patterns with both column and line chart views, making it easy to spot trends and seasonal variations in your data.

When to Use Time Charts

Time charts are ideal for:

  • Trend analysis — See how values change across time periods
  • Seasonal patterns — Identify recurring patterns or cycles in your data
  • Comparative time series — Compare trends across different categories
  • Period-over-period analysis — Understand growth or decline over specific timeframes
  • Temporal exploration — Interactively explore data at different time scales

Creating a Time Chart

To create a time chart in AddMaple:

  1. Select a date column — Choose the date column as your primary pivot
  2. Optional: Add a category — Add a second column (like product type, region, or sentiment) to compare multiple series
  3. View your chart — AddMaple automatically generates a time chart

Single Date Column

When you pivot by a date column alone, you get a simple time chart showing values at each time point.

What you see:

  • X-axis: Time periods (automatically formatted based on your date granularity)
  • Y-axis: Count or aggregated values
  • Interactive bars showing data for each time period

Date + Category

When you pivot by a date column and a category column, you get a multi-series time chart with one line or group of bars per category.

Example scenarios:

  • Review dates + sentiment (Positive, Neutral, Negative)
  • Sales dates + product type (Widget A, Widget B, Widget C)
  • Event dates + region (North, South, East, West)

Chart View Modes

Time charts support two complementary visualization modes that you can toggle between:

Column View (Default)

Shows data as vertical bars, one bar per time period.

Best for:

  • Comparing magnitudes easily at a glance
  • Seeing exact heights and proportions
  • Traditional time series analysis
  • Reports and presentations

Features:

  • Single-series charts show bars in the chart's color
  • Multi-series charts use grouped or stacked bars by default
  • Hover over bars to see exact values
  • Easy to sort and filter data

Line View

Shows data as connected lines that trace trends across time.

Best for:

  • Clearly seeing trends and direction of change
  • Reducing visual clutter with many time periods
  • Emphasizing continuity and flow
  • Comparing trends across multiple series

Features:

  • Each series gets its own color-coded line
  • Points on the line show actual data values
  • Hover over points to see detailed information
  • Smooth rendering even with many time periods
  • Points remain visible and interactive

Switching Between Views

To switch between column and line views:

  1. Look for the view toggle — Located in the chart controls (top right of the chart)
  2. Select your preferred view — Choose "Columns" or "Line"
  3. Chart updates instantly — Data and interactions remain the same

The toggle remembers your preference while working with that chart.

Controls and Options

Time charts support the same filtering and display controls as other pivots:

Aggregation by Another Column

Instead of counting records at each time point, you can aggregate values from a numeric column:

  1. Click the aggregation control — Look for "Number of records" or similar in the sentence bar
  2. Choose an aggregation type:
    • Total — Sum all values in your numeric column (e.g., total revenue per day)
    • Average — Calculate the mean of your numeric column (e.g., average order value over time)
    • Median — Find the median value (e.g., median salary across time periods)
    • Count Unique — Count distinct values from a categorical column (e.g., unique customers per day)
  3. Select your aggregation column — Choose which numeric or categorical column to aggregate
  4. Visualize aggregated data — Your time chart now shows the aggregated values instead of counts

Examples:

  • Total revenue by week (sum of sales amounts)
  • Average temperature by month (mean of daily temperatures)
  • Median response time by date (median of processing times)
  • Unique users per day (count distinct user IDs)

This works seamlessly in both column and line view modes.

Count vs Percentage

When you have multiple categories:

  1. Select "Percentage" — Shows each category as a percentage of the total for that time period
  2. Visualize proportions — See relative contributions at each point in time
  3. Compare compositions — Understand how the mix changes over time

Sorting

Organize your data in meaningful ways:

  • Sort by time — Standard chronological ordering (default)
  • Sort by value — Rank time periods by total or specific category values
  • Sort ascending/descending — Control the sort direction

Filtering

Focus on specific time periods or categories:

  • Filter by date range — Select specific start and end dates
  • Filter by category — Show or hide specific categories in multi-series charts
  • Use exclude filters — Hide unwanted categories while showing the rest

Multi-Series Time Charts

When you add a category column, you create multi-series time charts that show how different groups evolved over time.

Single Series (Date Only)

One line or bar group showing overall trends:

  • Simple and clear
  • Good for focused analysis
  • Minimal visual complexity

Multiple Series (Date + Category)

Multiple lines or bar groups, one per category:

  • Compare trends across categories
  • See which categories drive overall patterns
  • Identify leaders and laggards

Example: Analyze quarterly revenue by product line:

  • Each line represents a product
  • X-axis shows quarters over time
  • Y-axis shows revenue
  • Easy to see which products are growing

Interactive Features

Hover Information

Hovering over data points shows detailed information:

  • Exact value — Precise count or aggregated number
  • Date/time period — Which time point this represents
  • Category — Which category or series (for multi-series charts)
  • Percentage — Percentage of total (if percentage mode is active)

Click to Filter

In column view, click on a bar to filter to that time period, helping you drill deeper into specific dates or ranges.

Responsive Layout

Time charts automatically adjust to fit your screen:

  • Desktop — Full-width display with legend on the right
  • Mobile — Optimized layout for smaller screens
  • Dashboard — Stretches to fill the grid item height

Best Practices

Choosing a View Mode

  • Use columns for reports, presentations, and when precise value comparison matters most
  • Use lines for trend analysis, multi-series comparison, and when you have many time periods
  • Switch between views to find the perspective that best reveals your story

Formatting Time Data

For best results with time charts:

  • Use standard date formats — AddMaple recognizes common formats like YYYY-MM-DD, MM/DD/YYYY
  • Consistent date columns — All dates in the column should use the same format
  • Include complete dates — Even if you only care about months, include the full date with day

Multi-Series Analysis

When comparing multiple categories:

  • Limit categories — Too many lines become cluttered; consider filtering to key groups
  • Use contrasting colors — AddMaple's color scheme makes different series easy to distinguish
  • Switch to line view — Clearer with many series or long time ranges

Effective Storytelling

  • Highlight anomalies — Use filtering to focus on interesting patterns
  • Compare time periods — Use filtering to show before/after scenarios
  • Export for reports — Save interesting views as charts in your reports

Data Granularity

Time charts automatically adapt to your date granularity:

  • Days — Good for short-term trends (days to weeks)
  • Weeks — Balance between detail and overview
  • Months — Standard for quarterly and yearly planning
  • Quarters — Useful for business analysis
  • Years — Long-term trend analysis

AddMaple intelligently formats dates based on how many unique dates you have and the date range covered.

Troubleshooting

Chart Not Appearing

  • Verify date column — Ensure you've selected a date type column as your pivot
  • Check data validity — Make sure the column contains valid dates
  • Look for errors — Review any error messages about date formatting

Too Many Time Periods

  • Switch to line view — Better for handling many time periods
  • Filter date range — Focus on a specific time window
  • Aggregate to wider periods — Group into months or quarters if working with daily data

Multi-Series Not Showing

  • Verify second column — Confirm you've added a category column for series
  • Check visibility — Ensure categories aren't filtered out
  • Look for data — Verify that category combinations have data for each time period

Legend Not Showing

  • Check screen size — Small screens may hide legend initially; expand your view
  • Look in chart settings — Verify the legend hasn't been explicitly hidden
  • Use hover — Hover over points to see which series they represent

Key Points

  • Time charts visualize data changes across time with automatic date formatting
  • Create simple time charts with just a date column
  • Create multi-series charts by adding a category column (like sentiment or region)
  • Choose between column view (great for value comparison) and line view (excellent for trends)
  • Toggle between views to find the best perspective for your analysis
  • All standard filters, sorting, and percentage controls work with time charts
  • Interactive tooltips provide detailed information on hover
  • Time charts automatically adapt to different screen sizes and time granularities
  • Use columns for reports and presentations; use lines for trend analysis

Key takeaways

  • Time charts require a date column and optionally a category column for multi-series analysis
  • Two view modes (column and line) provide different perspectives on the same data
  • Column view excels at precise value comparison; line view excels at showing trends
  • Switch between views to find the best visualization for your analysis
  • All filtering, sorting, and percentage controls work seamlessly with time charts
  • Interactive features let you explore data by hovering and filtering on time periods
  • Multi-series time charts compare trends across different categories
  • Use line view for many time periods to reduce visual clutter
  • Consider your audience and analysis goals when choosing between view modes